The present application relates generally to an improved data processing apparatus and method and more specifically to an apparatus and method for a high performance and resource efficient communications between partitions in a logically partitioned system.
In today's information technology infrastructure, many server systems support logical partitioning. Many logical partitions of a logically partitioned system execute operating systems on which applications are deployed. Such applications communicate with applications within the same partition, within the same logically partitioned system, with devices coupled to the logically partitioned system, and with other applications on other systems coupled to the logically partitioned system. The communication protocols required to support such communication must support connection oriented, in-order, reliable, and flow-controlled data delivery. Implementing protocols to meet these requirements leads to resource intensive implementation which requires increased performance. Delivering such performance requires sophisticated and expensive communication hardware. The requirements still remain in place even in virtualized server environments.